Miu Miu

Talk about a volte-face. At the beginning of Milan, Miuccia Prada made a
play for sweetness with zippy car-print dresses, retro maillots, and
high-heeled sandals with tail fins. Today at Miu Miu, she opened with a
model who let's just say doesn't belong to the Natasha Poly school of good
looks, wearing a black blouse wrapped with a shape-obscuring matching stole
across the chest and a plain gray A-line skirt. Hollywood to hausfrau in
less than two weeks.

Afterward, she made a point about designing
the collection in the "15 days" (13 by our count) since her Prada show. "I
tried to do something different." Tried and succeeded. Though there were
some overlaps—midriff-baring bra tops made a reappearance, as did
lace—the emotions the two collections produced were quite dissimilar.
There was at once something folksy about Miu Miu and slightly cold. As the
show progressed, though, she added color (oxblood, cherry red, cerulean
blue) as well as festive prints. There was nothing to quite raise the
temperature like those Marilyn Monroe bathing suits in Milan, but we can see
fans warming to the stiff lace tent dresses here or a patchwork print skirt
worn with a clashing print top. The leather intaglio mules and boots will be
street-style fodder, no doubt.